I heard Todd from breaking bad was the best depiction of a psychopath in media. He’s not just outright evil like Anton he just doesn’t really have feelings of guilt or remorse like normal people.
There are many flavors of murdering psychopaths. A few mass murderers from history would’ve been called cliche portrayals today.
The banality of evil is what needs to be learned. Much like fascist rhetoric sounds stupid and is obvious in a vaccuum, when people are drenched in it, A LOT of people slowly succumb to the horrible attitude even if they never start explicitly supporting fascistic positions.
It is poison much like mental illness becomes a poison, slowly enabling mostly normal people to do terrible things, like Todd. Todd was only a psychopath in that he exhibited no sympathy, which a lot of “normal” psychopaths have. It took an enabling environment to turn Todd in to a dengerous captor and murderer.
Dan Carlin called fascism, among other things, an “intellectual contagion.”
Most ideologies and religions are “viral” in the way they spread. Being able to think critically is how one stays immune.
“Enlightened” atheist centrists are often pretty similar to what they claim to be smarter about than people who follow religion and ideology.
And thinking one is “immune” because of their ability to “think critically” is a very solid step to vulnerability. You’ll finde the same wordings for Q-Anon and other conspiracy theorists referring to themselves.
I don’t think Anton was outright evil. I don’t think you consider yourself evil for swatting a fly. To Anton people who crossed him were no different than flies to be swatted. And of course killing (or trying to kill) some people, like Moss, were just part of the job. He was simply violent because it was in his nature.
I think “killing people like they were flies” disqualifies you from anything above “neutral” on the morality chart, like pretty handily too.
I think it’s safe to say that this is a pretty incomprehensible standard for most. Could you explain what would make him evil? Viewing people as people, for example?
I guess I should add that I made the comment because of the comparison between Todd and Anton. I found it odd to call Anton “outright evil” as if that’s some distinction between Todd and Anton. Anton is no more or less evil than Todd. The only difference is that Anton was more violent due to the nature of his profession.
Gotcha - that’s an understandable, relative position I think I can agree with based on my memory of both characters and portrayals.
…Absent this clarification, it was looking as though you might belong in the same bucket as them.
Yeah, note to self, don’t make comments when tired. Key information might go missing.
In the book Anton is a personification of human evil as a natural force a bit like The Judge in Blood Meridian. The film is more ambiguous I think mainly due to the medium making the character more human by being played by an actor.
For me, the most unsettling part was how one of the most important scenes in the movie happens off camera.
I was like “Wait… Did I MISS that?” Nope. It just happens off camera.
No spoilers.
That’s close to how it happens in the book. I believe there’s a single paragraph revealing that >!Moss was killed.!< Then the story moves along.
My eyes! You’ve spoiled them!!
/s
To whom it may concern,
MURDER! MURDER! MURDER!
Yours truly, Maurice Moss
Maybe because psychopathy is not a diagnosis. Psychopath is a popular or sometimes criminalism term, it’s definition is vague and its use is not very strict. In mental health there’s antisocial personality disorder and psychopathic traits in personality testing. But there’s no single definition of what being a “psychopath” is.
It’s probably about how belivable in their experience the behaviour of the characters are.
I’d love to see the rest of the list.
I remember MASH being devoid of music as well.
Is there a list of movies that have no or very little music?
That laughter track, however…
I think they are referring to the movie, which (I believe) did not have a laugh track.
If you can find it there was a DVD release of the tv series where the laugh track could be disabled. It’s so much better.
Only the American release of the TV show had the laugh track. Whole different show without, isn’t it?
Ahh I see, nice :)
Thankfully the BBC aired the MASH episodes that were without the laughter track when I was watching it years (decades) ago. However, I’ve seen it more recently on one of the minor UK Freeview channels, and that came with laughter added… which eventually grates.
Wow
I’ve run into more Patrick Batemans than Anton Chigurhs in my career.
I can relate.
My profession isn’t known for its empathy.
Yeah but how many of them snapped and killed some people? I think that’s part of why that movie did well: it portrays a personality type that many can relate to. But it doesn’t mean that taking the extra step from someone who just doesn’t give a shit about others to someone willing to stab them to death is realistic.
Hannibal lecter isn’t supposed to be portrayed realistically though. He’s larger than life!
Yeah, as far as the movie goes he’s not a “real” portrayal of a psychopath. He’s supposed to make you feel scary and uncomfortable. It’s like going to a haunted house and complaining the killer clowns look fake.
He’s supposed to make you feel worried and uncomfortable, and he nails that perfectly.
Idk, he doesn’t really give me that vibe even a little bit.
I think we see during war times just how many latent psychopaths we have amongst us.
I think a lot of people are fine with making others suffer or die when they gain something for it (status, survival, money).
But I also think a lot of humans are lost. They don’t see themselves as being valuable and unique, and they don’t look at themselves and like what is inside.
Science also tells everyone they are pointless pieces of dust, and it’s easy to believe that unless you have your own intuition about it.
I’ve heard that last paragraph so many times and I can’t describe the pain I get in my eyes from them rolling so far back in my head.
Typically this shit comes from theists who can only find meaning in life if it comes in the form of some dusty old book written by unknown people some 2000 years ago.
Theism tells people their lives only matter to serve some made up deity for the hope of some eternal peace after they die. It’s a socially acceptable cult praying on people who are lost, think they hold no self worth, or can’t handle the existential terror of death.
You don’t need theism to have meaning in life. The meaning of your life is the one you give to yourself, bereft of any outside influences. Nobody’s life should be beholden to anyone else’s standards or expectations.
We’re all pointless. This life is all we get. Don’t waste it trying to find some grandiose meaning. Just live it.
The group of non-theists I’ve surrounded myself with (atheist, agnostic, between) knows we are dumb meat bags. Our purpose is to make ourselves and the other meat bags around us a little happier and a little more comfortable. We don’t really shout it out since we’re not driven to convert others/profess faith and not trying to act superior over those that beleive in something. So there may be more around you than you realize just tying to not be a dick
We are not pointless at all, and I’m sorry you feel that way. What I wrote has nothing to do with theism or deitys or cults. :)
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When did science tell you that, though? That sounds like a reinterpretation was made somewhere along the way.
I do not agree. I doubt the popularity of nihilism and similar ideas are causing a rise in antisocial personality disorder.
I imagine some people may feel like, if nothing matters, ethics do not matter. But (in my opinion) to feel that, the person was already non-altruistic and they only discovered that it was okay/justified to show it and to live by it.
In my case, I align to dark views about existence, but I also believe in the importance of taking care of others. If anything, believing that the world is unfair, senseless, painful, etc., has only made empathy/compassion and love more important (and urgent) to me.
What I’m trying to say is that I do not think our personalities and psychological oddities are so dependent on our views or ideologies. They can certainly affect us; for example, far-right ideologies can change a trusting person into a very suspicious one. But I’d say, in many cases, we are a certain way and we adapt our beliefs to that.
I would suspect a rise in narcissistic personality disorder, though. Narcissism is misunderstood. It’s not about thinking one is superior but about deep negative feelings about oneself that become a pattern of differentiating one from the rest (not necessarily in a grandiose way). Some studies use the term ‘vulnerable narcissism’ and that’s the presentation that I think we are ignoring as a society, so we don’t detect it, so we don’t address the possibility that we are exacerbating it. And vulnerable narcissists can be grandiose at times, and unethical, but most of the time they look like melodramatic self-fulfilled prophecies whom we brush aside as unwise or immature (think of many incels or edgy people or influencers caught in lies/dramas). And, even if a full disorder is not present, some traits can be. Perfectionism and unrealistic expectations, entitled rage, redirection or denial of responsibility, intolerance to shame, fixation on how one is being perceived (which can make the performance of an acceptable life more important than actually having a fulfilling life). It sounds like people I know and even myself in the past.
So… I don’t know about antisocial personalities. I do agree that they are more common than they seem, but I doubt we are ‘forming’ more by mere exposition to nihilism. Actually, facing nihilism seems inevitable, and our lack of a satisfactory response might be affecting our actions and societal values (we are all over the place ideologically, letting fascism get stronger and violence be normalized) which might cause the traumatizing and neglecting of children in a way that they are at risk of developing ASPD. But the culprit wouldn’t be nihilism. That’s only the question that we are failing to answer.
Our century is asking: “What if all existence is futile, what if our values are just our creation and all is senseless, indeed? Should we crave even more the material well-being and steal it from others, steal even their lives, in order to get it for ourselves? If not, what reason can be enough to justify stopping those who follow this? Is there something that may convince them to stop by themselves? What is the path we are choosing now?”. But we are not asking ourselves the questions, we are actually removing philosophy from high schools and universities and telling young people that only money is important…
And, don’t get me wrong, I think this is only a factor among others (climate change is pushing people into desperation, so it’s not only ideological but also a matter of material needs). Yet, I think we should be facing nihilism, questioning it, and not dancing around/inside it.
Sorry if this is huge…
Real psychopaths call themselves patriots and demand respect for their allegiance to oligarchs while they loot countries for their oil.
I thought the Bateman we saw was his fugue dissociated interpretation
The idea was it was supposed to be him losing track of the barrier between reality and his delusions. He did kill a girl in that apartment, it was not the ludicrously long chase we see though, for example.
I didn’t realise Peter Serafinowicz was in this film!
ABDICATES
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